Playboy bunnies latest target of City Hall ire

The Commission on the Status of Women is hopping mad about the Playboy bunnies

The fun and fireworks have been almost completely drained from the newly moderate, sensible (read: boring) Board of Supervisors – but never fear. The only-in-San Francisco legislation those at FOX News love to rip us for lives on thanks to the city’s lesser known, but always creative commissions.

The latest example is the Commission on the Status of Women’s resolution demanding that NBC cancel its new TV show “The Playboy Club” and replace it with a show that “depicts women’s substantive achievements.”

Set in 1960s Chicago, the show follows the mobsters and bunnies who, um, intermingled at Hugh Hefner’s famed Playboy Club. Its web-site says it’s set to debut Sept. 19, but perhaps NBC honchos are too busy firing the actresses and burning their bunny suits to announce they’ve scrapped the show because seven commissioners in San Francisco voted they should.

Or maybe not.

Kay Gulbengay, president of the commission, came up with the idea for the resolution and since its passage has been in discussions with the three female supervisors to advance it at the board level, too.

“I got a bee in my bonnet about it,” she said. “I’m not a prude, but Playboy is sexual exploitation of women, and we don’t need to go back there again. For me, it’s been there, done that.”

Anger about a fictional TV show that hasn’t even aired yet is nothing compared to some other machinations at the commission level in the past few months.

(By the way, there are roughly 100 commissions, working groups, task forces and the like in San Francisco, and they’re mostly advisory bodies made up of volunteers. Some, like the Police Commission and Planning Commission, are powerful, but most are not.)

The Human Rights Commission has also been very busy. It demanded that the New York Post retract a story about the woman who accused former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of rape. The story was entitled “Hotel Maid in HIV Shock” and amounted to “yellow journalism,” according to a letter to the newspaper from the commission’s director.

The same commission – we told you they’ve been busy – also recently published a report on creating more visibility for bisexuals in the city. While surely important, some recommendations don’t seem likely to become reality – such as educating the public about “inclusive language” like trading the word “homophobia” for “anti-LGBT bias.” Just rolls off the tongue, huh?

But back to the bunnies.

The Commission on the Status of Women isn’t alone in calling out NBC for being sexist. Iconic feminist Gloria Steinem, who nearly 50 years ago went undercover as a bunny to expose the sexism at Playboy, has called for a show boycott. She told Reuters the show “normalizes a passive dominant idea of gender.”

The NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City has also refused to air the show. “I think it’s the first time San Francisco will be aligned in any kind of thinking with Utah,” said Gulbengay, president of the commission, who we credit with having a good sense of humor about the whole thing.

And for being realistic about its likely impact.

“A resolution is just an urging,” she said. “I don’t see Hugh Hefner calling me. I don’t know what it will do, but I just know I’m glad we passed it.”